Brexit has excited the long-dormant Irish republican in me, and that has led to some posts expressing anti-English views. I'm sorry I did that, and I do hope that the UK can sort things out so that ordinary people don't suffer. I'm sorry I am such an arse sometimes.

the extremist wing of the IRA has already done some minor terrorist acts in Derry I think. But hopefully things will sort themselves out and the horrors can go back to sleep. Like Billy Bragg, I want Belfast to continue being just another northern industrial town.

Nancy Pelosi has said that any US-UK trade deal will have troubles if Brexit means a watering down of the GFA. Good on her. The Brexiteers have to be made realise that their antics will have a wide and long lasting effect.

In one particular domain he has been (and remains) very effective. European elections.

Current polling suggests that his 'Brexit Party' might top the polling. Time to get organised me thinks.

Three things to say:
1) Farage gives hard-working, salt-of-the-earth Snake, Oil Salesmen a bad name
2) There appear to be some major issues with the Brexit Party's fundraising - I am being careful to not repeat the detailed accusations here because of the Ship's necessarily cautious approach to such things.
3) Farage is marketing his party and himself as a drain the swap approach to politics. Irony is not so much dead as mummified and then thrown into a supernova. Even a casual look at Farage's record as an MEP would show that he personifies the 'swamp.'

The thing is, the above should disqualify him from holding any office. Even if not legally, then at the ballot box. However, he knows what he's doing and he's doing it rather well.

A win for the Brexit Party would be very a powerful weapon in preventing a People's Vote.

Now is the time for the real fightback - Remainers must find a way of out-voting Brexit. I think Labour probably needs to take a lead here.

One thing gives me hope though; Farage's success with UKIP was to a large extent built on low turn-outs. This time pro-Europeans are energised as never before; turnout is going to be higher.

All opinion pollsters work hard to correct the raw data on the basis of likelihood to vote. Getting this right is very tricky and this is most-often the reasons why polls are not as precise as they might be. I haven't looked at the detailed reports on these yet but I wonder if it really is just a reflection on who's most likely to turn up on polling day?

The Labour MEPs are - as far as I can tell- a sound bunch. I will probably be voting Labour. On social media, there are a lot of Remainers who care passionately who will not vote Labour unless the party becomes unequivocally pro-Remain or pro-PV.

I understand that. There's a lot of anger that various pro-Leave advocates keep quoting the Labour vote in 2017 as 'votes in favour of leaving.' That is a complete misrepresentation of many (most?) of us who voted Labour in 2017.

The Labour leadership needs to be convinced that there is both a moral and an electoral-calculus reason for becoming a clearly pro-Remain (or Pro-PV) party in this election. Those who think that Corbyn is simply anti-EU are not paying attention, in my view. His views are complex and nuanced and whilst I have no doubt that ultimately Labour can only lose if it doesn't do more to stop Brexit, many Remainers are blind to the other constituency of people who voted Leave and expect Labour to listen to them as well. Ulitmately Corbyn is a democrat and he doesn't seem to be able to set-aside the 2016 referendum as easily as some of us. He may well be right on this point.

I think the direction of travel in the Labour leadership is clear but the timing is critical. I think Labour needs to be clearly in favour of a PV before May 22nd.

Conversely, whilst I personally wish Labour had been more anti-Brexit all along, the key here is winning a PV and that means changing minds; you don't do that by telling people they're stupid or wrong or that you think they should be ignored. Labour needs to do 2 things; it needs to become more anti-EU, but it also needs to take people with it.

Yes, I just read an article in the Guardian enthusing about Tiggers, and I felt mildly nauseous. The best plan is to beat Farage, isn't it? I don't see how voting for a small party does that. But I haven't seen a list of candidates, or the last result.

We still need to see what goes into the manifesto for each party. Some will stand on revoking Article 50, others on a referendum between Remain and whatever deal Parliament approves with a commitment to campaign for remain. Remain supporters will probably split between those positions; I expect having a referendum will be the more popular remain position. But, it's a PR election, so there's scope for people to vote as they want, with several parties with slightly different positions on the remain side. In terms of relating the vote to support for remaining, the complicating factor will probably be the Labour Party position - does their manifesto come down on favouring remaining or leaving, or staying on the fence? Labour are almost certain to favour a referendum, but will they then commit to one side or the other in referendum campaigning?

At the other end, there's also going to be various positions for leaving. Some parties wanting an immediate hard Brexit, others wanting to get a deal through as soon as possible. Some pro-leave parties may decide that if elected they won't take their seats, others will probably take the seats and salaries ... whether they'll engage in Parliament is another question.

I am a Remainer and do think a PV was s a good choice. However it is not a magic bullet for remain.
I am not sure Farage will do that well in the election. They are a one position party. We are not voting totally on Brexit.

The advantage of a PR election is that you're not trying to unite the electorate behind a "anyone but X" candidate. It looks like Farage will get some seats, the only way to prevent that if the polls are even vaguely accurate is to convince those considering voting for the Brexit party to either stay at home or vote for another party - and, I'd be opposed to discouraging people from voting, even for fascists. We can reduce the number of seats they get by getting everyone else out to vote for someone else, whatever party that's for (though voting for a party where those votes are likely to push them over the threshold to get a seat would be better). Where you cast your vote will also depend on whatever else the parties are campaigning on; you want to get MEPs who will not only turn up but will then work for the things you're most concerned over (which will need us to see the manifestos).

Farage may be leading in the polls, but if the Brexit Party is to get any MPs elected it will have to get some candidates. If they are anything like the candidates UKIP has put up over the years they will be more disreputable, lazy and downright nasty than Farage. It really shouldn't be hard to find genuine "knocking copy" for most of them.

In any event, the principle has to be to keep the Tories and Farage out, which will mean voting for the party most likely to beat them, be they Labour, SNP, LibDem, Green or Plaid Cymru. Many will have to hold their nose when voting but it is vital to keep these bastards out.

Polls are one thing voting is another. I think there are too many people who would vote to remain or to have a PV to let his party get many seats. If the march is anything to go by he could be in trouble.

Polls are one thing voting is another. I think there are too many people who would vote to remain or to have a PV to let his party get many seats. If the march is anything to go by he could be in trouble.

Farage understands how to Get Out The Vote in ways Remainers have consistently failed to.

There is strong remain movement now. People who didn't’ Vote in the referendum are now more likely to vote. That could be enough to slow him down. He is getting lots of airtime and yes the leave vote formally split coos indeed come behind him. Still it may not be enough

The advantage of a PR election is that you're not trying to unite the electorate behind a "anyone but X" candidate.

D'Hondt tends to favor larger parties/coalitions over many smaller parties, especially in regions of the size used in the UK mainland, at the point at which one of the Brexit parties start to run away in the polls it starts to pay to vote tactically.

I'm not convinced it's very rational to use a party's position on a PV as the criterion for whether or not one votes for it in the European elections, given that a PV is in the gift of the Parliament in Westminster, not Brussels ...

And if the idea is to use the euro-elections as a sort of opinion poll, then that would imply a lack of respect towards the European institutions which is surely at odds with support for the EU.

Ricardus. In theory the EU elections are about all sorts of things. In theory we are electing someone to represent us in the European Parliament. In practice however Brexit will be the most influential subject. It is stupid but true

I think if you don't believe the UK should have a presence in the European Parliament, it's rational, although not very nice, to elect 'wrecking' candidates. Similar in some (not all) respects to Irish nationalists electing Sinn Féin MPs.

If you are hoping that UK MEPs will serve their full five-year term, after the successful resolution of a People's Vote, then it would be more sensible to elect MEPs who will actually advance what you believe to believe to be the correct direction for Europe over those five years.

I think if you don't believe the UK should have a presence in the European Parliament, it's rational, although not very nice, to elect 'wrecking' candidates. Similar in some (not all) respects to Irish nationalists electing Sinn Féin MPs.

I'm not sure I'd think of Sinn Féin as "wrecking", they don't take their seats from principal but don't act to subvert Parliament, they also do not receive MP salaries or claim any expenses. To me "wrecking" sounds more active than that - taking the seats and associated salary and expenses, but then acting in any way possible to disrupt Parliamentary processes - filibustering etc,

I think if you don't believe the UK should have a presence in the European Parliament, it's rational, although not very nice, to elect 'wrecking' candidates. Similar in some (not all) respects to Irish nationalists electing Sinn Féin MPs.

I'm not sure I'd think of Sinn Féin as "wrecking", they don't take their seats from principal but don't act to subvert Parliament, they also do not receive MP salaries or claim any expenses. To me "wrecking" sounds more active than that - taking the seats and associated salary and expenses, but then acting in any way possible to disrupt Parliamentary processes - filibustering etc,

I did hedge by saying '(not all)', but on second thoughts you are right, there is very little commonality between Sinn Féin's abstentionism and Farage's deliberate disruption.

"Once again"? Has it been any different for the last three years? The whole mess is one ongoing Conservative neurotic event spilling out across the country as a whole. 65m people in the UK, 500m across the rest of Europe, all having to live with the disagreements between a mere 125,000 Conservative Party members.

Chuka Umunna (sp) was in the Evening Standard yesterday talking about Change UK. They seem to think that the up coming Euro elections will show the country that the UK is actually pro Europe. It is looking more and more like the election will happen

I can't parse the EU elections any other way than as a second referendum. If there was ever a time for Remainers to show they still believe in their chances by voting for an anti-Leave candidate, this is it.

I can't parse the EU elections any other way than as a second referendum. If there was ever a time for Remainers to show they still believe in their chances by voting for an anti-Leave candidate, this is it.

That isn't necessarily as straight forward as all that given both D'Hondt - and thus the effects of fragmentation of some of the votes - that one would presumably hope to get out decent MEPs out of the other side (with someone like Seb Dance ranking higher than some of the folk ChUK have on their list).

I can't parse the EU elections any other way than as a second referendum. If there was ever a time for Remainers to show they still believe in their chances by voting for an anti-Leave candidate, this is it.

The problem is it is not a second referendum. No matter how many remain or leave MEPs we send leave can say it has no relevance to the actual Brexit issue. We are having to have these elections because we can’t make up our mind. You could parse them as totally separate.

Labour’s National Policy Forum wants party to campaign for Brexit referendum
[...]
So it is increasingly hard to see how Labour’s ruling NEC can at its emergency meeting next Tuesday ignore such widespread membership pressure and do anything but adopt a confirmatory referendum as the foundation of its manifesto.

Good old Grayling. The man who thinks Dilbert's boss is a mentor and model ...

I gather the Royal Navy are to pitch in for their £33 million. No French, Belgian or Dutch firms yet, I'm only waiting.

I read that a goverment spokesperson describes the ferry fiasco as a "cross-government decision" which has the huge benefit that no one minister, not even the hapless Grayling, needs to carry the can. She does also mention that the purpose of the deal is/was to ensure supply of vital medical supplies in the event of "no deal". In other words, "no deal" will fuck up medical supplies and they know it.

Good old Grayling. The man who thinks Dilbert's boss is a mentor and model ...

I gather the Royal Navy are to pitch in for their £33 million. No French, Belgian or Dutch firms yet, I'm only waiting.

I read that a goverment spokesperson describes the ferry fiasco as a "cross-government decision" which has the huge benefit that no one minister, not even the hapless Grayling, needs to carry the can. She does also mention that the purpose of the deal is/was to ensure supply of vital medical supplies in the event of "no deal". In other words, "no deal" will fuck up medical supplies and they know it.

Yes there are two important points here which should(!) both be front page news:
1) No Deal Brexit is a real threat to medical supplies (I seem to remember writing something about this a little while back)
2) Chris Grayling (yet again) is responsible for a very expensive error in judgment. Yet Failing Grayling is never accountable.

I don't think I need to expand on this thread why both of these things are not picked up by our ridiculous media.

Opportunities if we go, opportunities if we stay. Problems if we go, problems if we stay. Seems a very fine Balance to me. Isn't there a way we can have our Cake and eat it ? - Well most of our Cake anyway.